Habits, not cravings, drive food choice during times of stress

Putting a new spin on the concept of "stress eating," research presented at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Expo found that people who eat during times of stress typically seek the foods they eat out of habit – regardless of how healthy or unhealthy that food is.

The research co-authored and presented by David Neal, Ph.D., a psychologist and founding partner at Empirica Research, contradicts the conventional wisdom that people who are stressed-out turn to high-calorie, low-nutrient comfort food.

"Habits don't change in a high-pressure situation," Neal said. "People default to what their habits are under stress, whether healthy or not."

In the study he and his co-authors conducted this year, 59 MBA students at the University of California, Los Angeles, were asked during midterm exams which snack they would like from an array that included healthy snacks (fruit, non-fat yogurt, whole wheat crackers, nuts/soy chips) and unhealthy options (various candy bars, flavored popcorn, sugar cookies). They also were asked to rate how often during the week they choose that snack. The results found that during peak stress like an exam, participants were likely to fall back on their habitual snack.

"Habits are 45 percent of daily life," Neal said. "They cause us to disregard rational or motivational drivers and instead be cued by context, automated actions, time pressure and low self-control."

This kind of research has significant implications for food manufacturers trying to establish new products with consumers, said panelist Neale Martin, Ph.D., founding partner of Sublime Behavior Marketing and author of Habit: the 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore.

Martin noted that consumers already are habituated to the current products on store shelves, with the average weekly shopping trip taking about 45 minutes and including 31 items.

"Think about the cognitive efficiency of that effort," Martin said. "Think of how many things you're not looking at; how many things you are ignoring."

He believes that is a major reason about 80 percent of new products fail or dramatically underperform, a rate that has been largely unchanged for decades. A new product has to become part of the daily habits of consumers, which is not an easy task.

Martin suggests product developers go beyond the traditional consumer trials and get consumers to absorb the product into their daily life over an extend period of time. They need to find a place in their day where they are willing to disrupt their current habit and adopt a new one with that product.

"Where is the room for another brand in your life? Where is there room for another product? We are overwhelmed by choices," he said. "Figure out the automated behavior and then find out how to disrupt it and get consumers to initiate the behavior you want. You have to get the behavior to occur and then reinforce it by making sure the experience is so fantastic they want it to happen again."

Related Stories

Healthy snacks that promote a feeling of fullness (satiety) may reduce the amount of food intake at subsequent meals and limit overall food consumption, according to a presentation today at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists ...

Stress and exhaustion may turn us into zombies, but a novel study shows that mindless behavior doesn't just lead to overeating and shopping sprees—it can also cause us to stick with behaviors that are good for us.

Do you always get popcorn at the movies? Or snack while you're on the couch watching television? A new paper by USC researchers reveals why bad eating habits persist even when the food we're eating doesn't taste good. The ...

Consumers watching their diet should pay close attention to the amount of unhealthy foods they eat, but can relax when it comes to healthier options, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Food marketers are masters at getting people to crave and consume the foods that they promote. In this study authors Dr. Brian Wansink, co-director of the Cornell University Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition ...

Recommended for you

It seems like it's in just about every product on grocery store shelves: high-fructose corn syrup. What is it, and how is it different from regular old sugar? And how did it become such a popular but controversial ...

(HealthDay)—Although most health care staff feel that extended treatment time on hemodialysis is beneficial, many nurses do not recommend it, according to a study published online March 16 in the Journal of ...

Domestic violence takes many forms. The control of a woman's reproductive choices by her partner is one of them. A major study published in PLOS One, led by McGill PhD student Lauren Maxwell, showed that women who are ab ...

Exercise may play a critical role in maintaining good health, but fewer than half of the physicians trained in the United States in 2013 received formal education or training on the subject, according to ...

User comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.